Street Food: What a City Could Taste Like

Katie Rabinowicz
Andrea Winkler
Multistory Complex

Feeding the development of the city

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, street vending was an important source of
employment for new immigrants and vendors played an important role in the expansion
of the city and the provision of cheap, culturally appropriate foods to immigrants in lowincome neighbourhoods.
Waves of immigration in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries brought itinerant
European street vendors and their customers to North American cities. These salesmen
fed the development of cities, complementing their infrastructure by taking low-cost food
and goods to the new arrivals in the streets where they lived and worked. Street vending
was an important source of employment for new immigrants and vendors played an
important role in providing cheap, culturally appropriate foods to immigrants in lowincome neighbourhoods. Vendors were successful because their mobility allowed them
to reach high density, low income immigrant neighbourhoods. Vendors knew the market
demands and were able to provide ethnic food and goods at affordable prices because
of their low overhead costs. Customers were offered peanuts, popcorn, homemade
candy, cashews, candied apples, Turkish delight, fresh fruit, and a variety of other
choices. The special food demands of immigrants combined with the efforts of vendors
and shopkeepers increased the volume and variety of food in the city.
How has city planning impacted street food vending?
Initially, sidewalks provided a platform for many needs and uses, including socializing,
vending, and political activity. A lack of sidewalk regulation and poor housing conditions
led to lively street life. With the advent of modernist planning and the acculturation of
vendors, street food has moved indoors. Vending remains an important source of
employment for immigrants and others facing barriers to employment but street food is
no longer essential for consumers looking for fresh, affordable food suited to their
cultural tastes.
Sidewalks provided a platform for many uses including socializing, vending, and political
activity. A lack of regulations dictating the function of sidewalks and how, where and
what food could be sold facilitated vibrant street life and neighbourhood development.
Vendors in Kensington Market in late 1800s, for example, did not distinguish between
residential and commercial and public and private space. Uses were blurred partly due
to economic necessity and poor housing conditions which forced people onto their front
lawns and sidewalks to conduct both personal and business activity.
So why, in so many cities, is there now such a dearth of street food? Essentially, it is
because street food moved indoors. Modernist planning segmented the city into
specialized zones like commercial, residential, public, and private. The sidewalk, once a
place for vending, socializing, and political activity, was narrowed to accommodate car-

centred developments and declared off limits for anything but pedestrian circulation. This
was arguably to serve fixed place businesses like new specialty shops, grocery and
department stores which replaced unspecialized commercial spaces of the 17th and 18th
century. These planning trends are seen in many cities, including Toronto, Melbourne
and New York. Cooking and eating became private, indoor activities, and the sale of
food became the domain of specialized retailers. At the same time, street vendors
became more upwardly mobile, they acculturated, bought or rented stores, and moved
inside. The street lost its public culinary life.
Micromanagement of the sidewalk
Use of sidewalks for circulation was enforced through a number of regulations and bylaws which created a culture of sidewalk regulation that continues today.
Vending was first regulated in Toronto in the 1850s. The Lords Day Act was used in the
early 1900s, for example, to restrict Jewish and Chinese vending in Kensington. The
subordination of vending and other sidewalk activities to pedestrian circulation is equally
apparent in the 2006 City of Torontos Vibrant Streets document which outlines the
objectives of Citys street furniture program. A clear pedestrian pathway is essential for
a functional and accessible streetscape. All street furniture should be placed outside of a
straight, continuous sidewalk within the Pedestrian Clearway to best serve pedestrian
movement. The document states that to serve competing demands for sidewalk space,
a safe, efficient and accessible walkway should be prioritized.
The City achieves these objectives by zoning the sidewalk into four areas, also outlined
in Vibrant Streets:
Edge Zone This is the zone by the curb, acting as a buffer between cars and
the sidewalk. It provides room for signs, posts, and garbage set out.
Furnishing and Planting Zone This zone may contain street furniture (including
vending carts), trees and other fixed objects. It is a buffer between pedestrian
and vehicular traffic.
Pedestrian Clearway This zone accommodates pedestrian movement; a clear,
straight, unobstructed continuous path of sidewalk with a reasonable width to
serve pedestrian flow. Provision of this zone is a high priority.
Frontage and Marketing Zone This is the area adjacent to the building/property
line that buffers pedestrians from windows, doorways, other building
appurtenances. This area may consist of marketing, boulevard cafes and/or
landscaping and in some cases may support street furniture, depending on
space available.
The protection of the pedestrian clearway, in addition to protection of fixed placed
businesses and vending carts, is enforced through the City of Toronto Municipal Code,
Street Vending, Chapter 315. It requires the following of vending carts:
Cannot exceed 2.32 square metres, including any seat and waste receptacle
Cannot be located directly in front of an entrance to or exit from a building.
Cannot block the name or municipal number of a building or a display window,
unless the owner or occupant has no objection.
Cannot be located less than twenty-five (25) metres from any part of a business
which sells to the public products similar to those proposed to be sold from the
cart

Cannot be located within a twenty-five-metre radius of an existing designated

area for a cart
A total of at least three and sixty-six hundredths (3.66) metres of paved and
passable space, measured between the designated area and the curb and
between the designated area and any adjacent obstruction to pedestrian
passage or change in grade on private property, remains clear of all obstructions
and available for uninhibited pedestrian passage.

One enforcement officer observed that most infractions in Toronto are due to vendors
occupying more space than permitted (for example, due to coolers or winter heaters) or
vending without a permit, for example, in high density, popular areas like Torontos
entertainment district. If vendors violate regulations they are subject to the enforcement
of Bill 168, a City-initiated provincial bill, passed in 1994, which permits removal zones
and seizure. Under this bill, vendors may receive tickets for $150 or seizures costing
$500 to reclaim the cart. In 2002, the City also imposed a moratorium on vending in the
downtown area for reasons of congestion and concentrations of vendors. In that year,
there were 375 approved vending locations, 351 of which were downtown. Finally,
vendors are also regulated by the Safe Streets Act, passed by the Tory government in
late 1990s. The Act restricts or prohibits panhandling and squeegeeing and was used,
with some aggression, in Chinatown in late 1990s to crackdown on vendors for blocking
and congesting storefronts.
The Citys detailed vending regulations reflect a micromanagement of the sidewalk that
must be enforced through constant policing. Ensuring that vendors stay within the lines
of the Municipal Code requires ongoing face-to-face relations between police (or
enforcement officers) and vendors. The police must rely on the cooperation of the
vendors, and the vendors must rely on the police not to abuse the law. This complicates
relations as do uncoordinated or vague rules that lead to ad hoc and selective
enforcement.
The uneven use of sidewalk space
Restrictions on the use of sidewalk space and the public realm especially impact people
and communities who rely on these spaces for their livelihood or for their social and
cultural connections and development.
Vending regulations that claim to work in the public interest may in practice be used
against certain groups, for example, through selective enforcement. Laws controlling
what may be sold and where may be couched in euphemistic terms of "beautification" or
"urban renewal" or explicitly target vendors, panhandlers, and street entertainers. Such
"street cleaning" has particularly affected women, visible minorities, and people with low
incomes who rely on the sidewalks for their livelihood or cultural expression. When these
groups are removed from the streets, they are cut off from their spaces of employment
and their networks of social support. Spaces of consumption and recreation become
more exclusive.
Urban renewal strategies in Toronto and Washington, DC, for example, led to police
crackdowns or increased restrictions on vendors. In Toronto, vendors were removed
from Chinatown and Yorkville, slicing off some of the city's space for low-income
employment and consumption. In Washington, policies presented as neutral had the
effect of disproportionately reducing the number of women vendors. The new regulations
mandated increased licensing fees that the lower-income women could not afford, heavy

carts that many women could not maneuver, and a smaller and more widely spaced
vendor population that was not as safe for women vendors. In Atlanta, vending had been
an important entry point into the formal economy for those facing barriers to
employment, including a segment of the city's black population. Black street vendors
supplied their own communities with the goods they preferred and contributed to a local
black culture and public realm. These traditions were ignored by the new vending
regulations.
Informal economies, defiance and empanadas
Despite the regulations, vendors persist in selling tasty street food out of economic
necessity, a strong informal economy and rebellion against a strict regulatory regime that
is blind to planning for culturally diverse, inclusive cities.
For some communities, illegal or informal vending is either an economic necessity or an
act of rebellion against a regulatory system that is blind to the impact it has on the lives
of women, minorities, and people with lower incomes. The law in many cities is
indifferent to the legitimate and beneficial ends of this extra-legal vending, including
stronger immigrant entrepreneurialism, a more accessible public realm, a means to
distribute cheap goods to poor people, and simple survival for people who may have no
other way to make a living.
Defiant vendors are flouting the law everywhere. In Toronto, street food is essentially
limited to hotdogs (provincial health regulations limit on-street food preparation to "the
reheating of precooked meat products in the form of wieners or similar sausage products
to be served on a bun"), but you can still find a summer student selling crepes outside a
health food store, a Peruvian woman selling contraband empaadas in the market ( she
now owns an empaada restaurant), a man selling corn on the cob on a major shopping
strip, and a community kitchen selling baked goods in the local park. In Oakland,
California, where the Latino community established rows of illegal fruit stands and taco
trucks along major thoroughfares, the city eventually legalized their informal economy as
a tool for economic and cultural development.
Multistory Complex Street Food Vending Project
Multistory Complex has launched the Street Food Vending Project to address issues
around food security and regulation of vendors and social space.
In Toronto, public health regulations focus on the preparation of the food rather than the
safety and design of the cart. Narrow definitions of public health have resulted in
exclusive permission of homogenous, unhealthy street food. In response, Multistory
Complex, a nonprofit urban planning organization, has launched a project aiming to
introduce healthy, affordable and culturally diverse street food to Toronto. The Street
Food Vending Project aims to integrate street food into a local, sustainable urban food
system; improve vending regulations; address the concerns of Torontos current
vendors; and educate the public on vending and its relations to larger urban planning
themes like planning for diversity and the construction of social spaces.
Street Food Vending Cart Design Competition
As part of the Street Food Vending Project, Multistory Complex launched a national
Street Food Vending Cart design competition in partnership with Professor Lorella Di
Cintio at Ryerson University, Faculty of Communication & Design. The competition
sought new designs for Toronto's hot dog carts. It aimed to introduce healthier,

affordable and more culturally diverse street food to Toronto. It was also intended to
foster a public conversation about the culture and politics of street food vending. It used
a design challenge and a familiar object of daily life, the vending cart, as a window into
larger issues of food security and community health, the construction and regulation of
the public realm, and labour. Street vending naturally bridges these issues and
rethinking the design of the cart is an opportunity to take an interdisciplinary approach to
design and policy questions like what kind of food should be sold and where? How does
vending relate to the construction of an accessible public realm? And how should we be
supporting vending as viable, legitimate employment?
Competition criteria and ideas development
The competition required that the designs were mobile and equipped to serve healthy,
affordable and culturally diverse street food. It asked designers to consider the concerns
of Torontos street food vendors; the social spaces that vending carts create; the
contribution of street vending to pedestrian-friendly environments; and the carts location
in Torontos diverse neighbourhoods, including those without access to healthy,
affordable food. Entrants and the general public were invited to attend the competitions
Snack Chats, a panel discussion series on the culture and politics of vending, organized
by Multistory Complex. The competition was also informed by ideas and designs
generated in an undergraduate design studio course taught by Professor Lorella Di
Cintio at Ryerson University. Her students vending cart designs are exhibited at the
Design Exchange alongside competition entries.
Competition entries were evaluated according to design principles like accessibility,
functionality, and flexibility. Evaluation criteria was also based on feedback from
Torontos street vendors who raised design concerns like personal safety, food storage
and preparation space, and sustainability, like alternative energy sources.
Design and the public realm
An important design issue is the relation of the vending cart to the design and use of the
sidewalk. The placement of the vending cart is intended to maximize pedestrian
circulation, the priority of the sidewalk. Current regulations require that vending carts
remain mobile despite the fixed location of the vending permit. Some vendors have been
in the same location for over twenty years but their cart must be mobile and accessories,
like heaters and tarps, must occupy minimal space. This requirement has many
implications: vendors receive many tickets for space infractions; wind and snow can
easily enter the vendors working space; vendors must drive their cart to work every day
thereby adding to carbon emissions; and permanent, complementary infrastructure, like
seating and public washrooms, are not permitted, thereby diminishing potential for an
accessible, social space.
The competition acknowledges the effect of design on how space is used and by whom.
Redesign of the vending cart is an opportunity to contribute to the design more
accessible spaces, considering the needs of diverse sidewalk users, many of whom use
the public realm in ways that are discouraged or not planned for, including children,
disabled people and the homeless. Street furniture can be intentionally inaccessible, for
example, public washrooms that are designed for restricted access through payment
and select hours of operation and rivets in public benches to discourage sleeping. As
designers, planners, and activists, we can intentionally design space for more inclusive
and diverse uses.

How can we support street vending?

There are many options to support a strong and healthy vending culture in cities.
Options include redesigning urban space and planning for an inclusive public realm,
supporting vending as viable employment, and integrating vending with efforts to build a
food secure city.
Street vending presents an opportunity to bring more life and diversity to our sidewalks.
It is a great stepping stone for small-scale entrepreneurs and those facing barriers to
employment due to factors like language and disability. Vending has the potential to offer
affordable, healthy and culturally diverse food reflective of Torontos multicultural
population. The Vending Cart Design Competition highlights the important role of design
in achieving these possibilities. Other urban design, policy and planning initiatives could
include:

Lifting the current moratorium on vending permits in the downtown and

permission of more vending spaces, especially in underserved areas. This would
decrease illegal vending and create more jobs and tax revenue
Development of a harmonized and coordinated vending regulatory framework in
partnership with vendors and relevant City divisions including Urban Design,
Public Health and Municipal Licensing and Standards.
Permission of permanent vending locations and complementary infrastructure
and activity like seating, public washrooms, and street entertainment
Increasing vendor access to public space, for example, by widening sidewalks
and prioritizing employment space and vending carts over other street furniture
like planter boxes
Provision of employment support for vendors, including accounting, tax and
marketing training, small business loans, and support for a vendors association
which could provide legal assistance, insurance and health care
Better enforcement of vending regulations through education for enforcement
officers and vendors. An easy to read manual in multiple languages would
diminish confusion and encourage consistent enforcement
Connection of street food vending to a local sustainable food system. Initiatives
could include: criteria based on principles of food security when evaluating
vendor applications for new permits; permission of permits in food insecure
areas; and connecting vendors to local farmers, food processors, and kitchen
incubators.

With the health of urban societies, multicultural expression and public life increasingly at
issue, contemporary North American cities have an opportunity to renew one of their
most vital original economies. Street food presents an opportunity to break from the
usual planning practices, which often take a siloed approach to public space, focusing
on zoning and narrowly defined land uses. According to Nish Fernando, flexibility is the
key: "rather than repeating the same design of sterile unused streets, leaving space for
spontaneous and culture-laden street life has the potential to generate an exciting public
social life in our cities. The focus must be on making urban streets flexible to their users
under regulations other than those that overspecify land uses and apply strict zoning
codes, so that users of different cultures can then modify, add to or change the streets in
ways appropriate to their society and culture."
Limiting sidewalk activity, including vending, limits the diversity and accessibility of our

sidewalks. As a city, we need to think about how we want to use our sidewalks and who
has access to them. Support for vendors and others who use the sidewalk for their
livelihood could help inform a new vision: the creation of a public realm that is supportive
of cultural and employment diversity, healthy food, and tasty living.

References
Nisha Fernando. Taste, smell and sound on the street in Chinatown and little Italy.
Architectural Design Food and the City issue, May 2005. Franck, Karen A. (ed.)